• ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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    1 year ago

    It’s marketing that has to make every year the best ever, but I doubt there’s been a top 5 year in the last decade.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      1 year ago

      It’s a lot of marketing, but also it’s an active commercial field where people have a lot of influence on the outcome of their projects.
      Given that and how it’s a growing market, it wouldn’t be surprising if the average number of real good games went up nearly every year.

      • ryathal@sh.itjust.works
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        1 year ago

        Great AAA games seem genuinely rare now. They development cycle is shockingly long. I’d be surprised if there’s even a similar number of AAA games released, even more so good ones. You can make up the difference with indie games, but release year isn’t always related to when a good indie title is actually discovered.

        • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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          1 year ago

          I don’t disagree. As games have higher demands, they take longer to make.
          I think that experience churn is also a part of what makes it harder to see a continuous improvement in quality. In this comment area, you can see a little microcosm of what I mean. “Best year” seems to be a good year that lands during a certain age/point in your gaming experience journey.

          I see that every year there are fewer games that I want to spend my time playing. I also see that I’ve got less time to play, and that a lot of games are just derivative, incremental refinements, sequels, or just “another game like…”. I also see that a bunch of those games are being massively praised.
          My take is that the games are better, I just have a raising threshold for novelty, and a game can be good and also not meet that threshold.

          No matter how good your game is I’ve already played a puzzle platformer, so the new one won’t be the same.